Celebrating Gieve Patel at the Experimental Theatre NCPA

#CelebratingGieve #GievePatel #QuasarThakore #ShantaGokhale #RanjitHoskote #AvanPatel #NCPA #ExperimentalTheatre #havobi #shernazpatel

At the NCPA Experimental Theatre a few days ago, poets, theatre practitioners, painters etc. converged to celebrate the life of the poet, playwright, painter Gieve Patel who passed away two months ago. Excerpts from his play #MisterBehram were enacted in English and Marathi The introduction was done by Shanta Gokhale, in which she spoke of Gieve’s play Mister Behram.

Mister Behram is about Behram, a rich Parsi landowner, also a well-known lawyer and reformist, and his relationship witha Warli tribal man Naval whom he adopted. Later on, he developed an acute physical fondness for the man and even permitted his daughter Dolly to marry him. The play highlights psychological complications in the family set-up, emotional abuse compounded by unfulfilled unspoken sexual feelings. Naval worships Behram given that he is his mentor, and feels compelled to always be in his good books. While Behram's feelings for his family and Naval are far more complicated.

The play was set in 19th-century south Gujarat where many members of the Parsi community owned estates that were home to indigenous tribes. The reading of Shanta Gokhale’s translation in Marathi was presented by #GajananParanjape who Gokhale considers the greatest living actor, #RutaPandit #SaeeLimaye and #AniruddhaKhutwad, who directed the play for its run in Marathi. The evening ended with several readings of poems written by Gieve by poets like #MenakaShivdasani #Arundhati and artists and friends like #AtulDodiya